From: John Beckett 

Chris  wrote in message news::
> Can someone educate (tell) me as to what the "ping of death" is?  (but
> not a lesson from the "school of hard knocks"), please.  Thanks!

A 'ping of death' is a single packet using the 'ping' protocol (that is,
ICMP Echo). The values in the POD are chosen so as to confuse the target
(the computer that the POD is sent to). A target with a dumb TCP/IP
implementation will crash when sent a POD (the TCP/IP protocol may stop
working, or the whole operating system may crash).

Years ago, Windows NT 4.0 was considered pretty well bullet proof. ISTR the
POD was among the first indications that the "NT" family had some
ugly secrets (unpatched NT blue-screen crashes on a POD).

John

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